Kouoro

Kouoro is a small town and rural commune in the Cercle of Sikasso in the Sikasso Region of southern Mali. The commune covers an area of 472 square kilometers and includes the town and five villages.[3] In the 2009 census it had a population of 11,315.[2] The town of Kouoro, the chef-lieu of the commune, is 75 km north of Sikasso, on the RN11, the main road linking Sikasso and Koutiala. It is also about 30 km west of the border with Burkina Faso.

Kouoro
Commune and town
Kouoro
Location in Mali
Coordinates: 11°58′5″N 5°41′19″W
Country Mali
RegionSikasso Region
CercleSikasso Cercle
Area
 • Total472 km2 (182 sq mi)
Elevation
300 m (1,000 ft)
Population
 (2009 census)[2]
 • Total11,315
 • Density24/km2 (62/sq mi)
Time zoneUTC+0 (GMT)

Villages
  • Katierla
  • Koumbala
  • Kouoro
  • Makono
  • Sokourani
  • Sougoula

Population history
Historical population
YearPop.±%
1998
(census) 		10,782—    
2009
(estimate) 		11,315+4.9%

History

The French explorer René Caillié stopped at Kouoro in February 1828 on his journey to Timbuktu. He was travelling with a caravan transporting kola nuts to Djenné. In his book Travels through Central Africa to Timbuctoo published in 1830, he refers to what was then a village as Couara.[4] Caillié wrote:

At nine o'clock in the morning we halted at Couara, a pretty village, where we found an abundance of all the necessities of life. The inhabitants grow a great deal of cotton and millet, and are supplied with water from a stream that runs E.N.E., half a mile from the village.[5]

What Caillié referred to as a stream was actually the Banifing River, a tributary of the Bani but in February it would have had very little water.[4]

Not long after Mali declared independence from France in 1960, an annular solar eclipse took place on 31 July 1962, some 4 km northwest was the center of the greatest eclipse that happened at 12:25 GMT and 12 N, 5.7 W and included Kouoro and lasted for ​3 1⁄2 minutes.[6]

References
  1. Common and Fundamental Operational Datasets Registry: Mali, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, archived from the original on January 6, 2012. commune_mali.zip (Originally from the Direction Nationale des Collectivités Territoriales, République du Mali)
  2. Resultats Provisoires RGPH 2009 (Région de Sikasso) (PDF) (in French), République de Mali: Institut National de la Statistique, archived from the original (PDF) on September 19, 2012.
  3. Communes de la Région de Sikasso (PDF) (in French), Ministère de l’administration territoriale et des collectivités locales, République du Mali, archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-09-19.
  4. Viguier 2008, p. 52.
  5. Caillié 1830, p. 415.
  6. "Solar eclipse of July 31, 1962". NASA. Retrieved March 21, 2017.

Sources


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